Notes and Editorial Reviews
TELEMANN
Orchestral Suites:
in D,
TWV 55:D15;
in Bb,
TWV 55:B5;
in D,
TWV 55:D22.
Polish Concertos:
in Bb,
TWV 43:B3;
in G
, TWV 43:G7
•
Martin Gester, cond; Arte dei Suonatori
•
BIS 1979 (77:12)
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In an earlier review of Telemann works I lamented having long since given away a 1900 reprint of the
Grove Dictionary,
as I remembered very uncharitable remarks dismissing the composer. Just today I discovered that
Grove
edition has become available online, and to my delight, found the passage in question: “With all his undoubted ability he originated nothing, but was content to follow the tracks laid down by the old contrapuntal school of organists…He was a highly skilled contrapuntalist, and had, as might be expected from his great productiveness, a technical mastery of all the received forms of composition…but these advantages were neutralized by his lack of any earnest ideal, and by a fatal facility naturally inclined to superficiality. He was over-addicted, even for his own day, to realism…and is opposed to all depth of expression, and consequently to true art.”
What a difference a century makes! As the
New Grove
article on Telemann notes, 19th-century German musicologists took offense at Telemann writing numerous operas—unlike their recently crowned king, J. S. Bach—which they considered beneath the lofty status of an important Cantor. That likely accounts for the sneers about realism and true art. (And that generation of British musicians and writers on music who created
Grove
were mostly German-trained, or influenced.) Certainly in our own time, no baroque composer is seriously held to a yardstick measuring non-quantifiable “earnest ideals.” Nor does Telemann’s contrapuntal skill draw attention these days. What baroque composer worthy of the name lacked this? (And Wassenaer doesn’t count; he was an amateur.) Telemann is most admired in modern times for his ability to absorb and imaginatively deploy every musical style he encountered. A number of the works on the album demonstrate how well he managed this.
Telemann’s
ouvertures
aren’t overtures in the modern sense, but orchestral suites, derived structurally from French models. Within this very free form (basically, an overture, and any number of dances and character pieces you want to toss in), he poured a wealth of creativity. The most often heard of the group is the
Ouverture
in D, TWV 55:D15, and it’s the only one on this album without a program of sorts. Still, each movement is highly characterized and as distinctive in content as the
Water
and
Royal Fireworks Music
by Handel, who was a good friend of the composer.
The
Völker-Ouvertüre
may have gained its name in modern times, but the work lives up to it. After an overture and minuet, we get movements meant to represent dances featuring Turks, the Swiss, Moscovites, the Portuguese—then the lame, and finally, the fast. The links between nationality and music are more difficult to pinpoint, and in several instances probably reflect the composer’s humor. The startling, bell-like texture in the Moscovites’ movement, for instance, could be a sly reference to the city’s then-endless series of belled Orthodox churches.
Telemann’s whimsical humor puts in another appearance in the
Ouverture, jointes d’une Suite tragi-comique
from the 1760s. It presents three “illness” movements, each followed by a cure, or at any rate, treatment for symptoms. Gout? Travel by carriage, and another strengthen your legs through a gentle dance. Depression? You need distraction and merriment. Pathological vanity? Telemann provides a movement whose title was also that of a Parisian asylum, visited regularly by gawkers who paid for the privilege of watching the insane. A halting beat and chromatic descents show us the gout-ridden, while the depressive can hardly state a small part of a lengthy, nobly suffering theme (shades of Nielsen’s
Four Temperaments
) before it’s repeatedly interrupted by a few phrases of one quick-timed dance step after another. The vain get the three trumpets in the work’s instrumentation, much as you’d expect; and the uncontrolled, undirected energy of the inmates would probably stun anybody out of self-complacency.
The
Polish Concertos
are better known, and have been repeatedly recorded over the years. Telemann encountered Polish folk music while serving as Kapellmeister to Count Erdmann II of Promnitz, starting in 1705. The court summered in Pless, where rural workers performed regularly for their own pleasure, and for dances, weddings, etc. “The whimsies that these bagpipers or violinists have when they improvise, when the dancers are resting, are scarcely credible,” Telemann explained in a letter many years later. “In the fullness of time I have written various major concertos and trios in this manner, clothing then in an Italian dress…” He was hardly the only baroque composer to show a great interest in the musically bizarre. (The term “baroque” itself originally means bizarre, as when Jean-Baptiste Rousseau derided Rameau’s
Dardanus
in 1739 by referring to him as one of the “distiller of baroque chords of which so many idiots are enamored.”) But Telemann was of the very few who drew upon a specific regional folk music for these effects, and applied them consistently across an entire work. Drones, krakowiak rhythms, unison passages, unprepared shifts of key and melody, slow wedding dances utilizing tetrachord-based scales: These and more are placed within a surrounding Italianate texture to excellent effect.
Don’t let the name fool you: Arte dei Suonatori is a Polish period-instrument ensemble formed in 1993. They’ve been favorably reviewed in the past in these pages. James Reel referred to their performances of the opus 6 concerti grossi by Handel as “wonderfully polished” (32:4), and their version of Vivaldi’s
La stravaganza
as “a tour de force of technique and interpretation” (27:2). I would agree with all this, and add that their strong feel for rhythm, color, and subtle phrasing is especially noticeable. Only once did I feel they went on a wrong tack, in the quicksilver
Harlequinade
movement to the
Ouverture
in D, TWV 55:D15, which was taken far too slowly. Otherwise, they offer up great energy and character.
With excellent, crisp, and well-balanced sound, this one’s a winner.
FANFARE: Barry Brenesal
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Works on This Recording
1.
Overture-Suite for Strings and Basso continuo in B flat major, TV 55 no B 5 "Völker" by Georg Philipp Telemann
Conductor:
Martin Gester
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Arte Dei Suonatori
Period: Baroque
Written: Germany
2.
Overture-Suite for 3 Oboes, Bassoon, Strings and Basso continuo in D major, TV 55 no D 15 by Georg Philipp Telemann
Conductor:
Martin Gester
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Arte Dei Suonatori
Period: Baroque
Written: Germany
3.
Concerto polonois for Strings and Basso Continuo in G major, TV 43 no G 7 by Georg Philipp Telemann
Conductor:
Martin Gester
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Arte Dei Suonatori
Period: Baroque
4.
Concerto polonois for Strings and Basso continuo in B flat major, TV 43 no B 3 by Georg Philipp Telemann
Conductor:
Martin Gester
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Arte Dei Suonatori
5.
Overture-Suite in D major, TV 55 no D 22 "Ouverture, jointes d'une Suite tragi-comique" by Georg Philipp Telemann
Conductor:
Martin Gester
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Arte Dei Suonatori
Period: Baroque
Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review: 
( 1 Customer Review )
One of the best! February 20, 2013
By Troy K. (Oro Valley, AZ) See All My Reviews
"This is simply one of the best collections of some of Telemann's orchestral music. The performances are superb and the recording is among the best I've heard. This is the disc I would choose to give to someone who had never heard any of Telemann's compositions, because I am sure it would win them over to his cause!"
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